The Science Paparazzi

From The Onion, via James Boyle:
Members of the paparazzi say they are merely responding to public demand, providing a service to the millions of Americans who closely follow the careers of the world's top physicists, mathematicians, and botanists.
"In this country, people want to know about scientific discoveries the minute they happen," said New Haven-based freelance photographer Lance Evans. "It's only natural that the public would be interested in the personal lives of the men and women behind these discoveries."
Gould insisted that the adoring public is not the problem.
"The paparazzi are far more forceful and disruptive than they need to be," said Gould, who on Aug. 5 pleaded no-contest to a March incident in which he attacked an intrusive paparazzo with a broken graduated cylinder. "I realize they have a job to do, but there is such a thing as taking it too far."
According to Gould, paparazzi often use illegal means to secure photos for such notoriously disreputable tabloids as Science World Weekly and Starz, which bills itself as "your most trusted source for astronomy celebrity news."
The article is humorous throughout. The closer is this:
"These scientists are the most important people in America," Krause said. "Our very future depends on them. They are enabling us to live longer and better, discovering the history of the planet we live on, and unraveling the mysteries of the universe. There's no way we'd ever let them work in obscurity. It's laughable."

They sound like the battlefield contraptions from a science fiction film: an aircraft carrier built from an iceberg, aerial mines and even a rocket-propelled wheel.
However, they are all ideas dreamt up by a scientific innovator more commonly known as Britain’s greatest wartime prime minister – Winston Churchill.
While most know Churchill as a politician, a celebrated orator, a painter and even a respected author, few people know him as Churchill the science enthusiast.

Russell Foster thinks you should get more shut-eye – and he should know. A professor of circadian neuroscience at the University of Oxford, Foster has spent his life studying the human body clock and trying to answer the question: What happens during the more than one-third of our lives that we spend sleeping? The short answer: a lot more than you think.

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg argues in a controversial new book that women's lack of commitment, even before they have a family, is why so few make it to the top. Is she right? In a sea of blue and black, Sheryl Sandberg, a vivacious brunette in an orange jacket, stood out.

A friend of mine sent me a link to Matthew Kahn’s latest guest blog post on the Christian Science Monitor website; she sent it along with an “I believe in you” sort of note, because as Matthew was implicitly pointing out, I am not on the list of top economists to which he refers–while he is (as he explicitly points out). He ponders (emphasis added):